CASUAL
NORDLINGER, JAY
Casual STAGEDOOR JAY I must've been 12 when I first heard Leontyne Price. I didn't like vocal music much—young people seldom do. But she was on the concert series, sandwiched between the likes of...
...Some call him "Saliva...
...Ormandy, I just wanted to tell you I thought you did a very good job...
...The boy nodded...
...It took a tremendous act of will for her to ignore me...
...The first time I went backstage, it was to meet Eugene Ormandy...
...About the singer— and her art—I cared nothing...
...My friends started to refer to me as a "Price-head...
...My brief conversation with the diva was . . . well, sublime...
...He once commanded divisions...
...But mainly I remember Alicia de Larrocha, my pianist hero, who turned out to be a shrew and a half...
...Price is a remarkable man: a rough-talking, rigid-backed soldier with a golden heart and an ample knowledge of music...
...I wanted to hear her again and again, and she wasn't getting any younger, so I kept a close eye on her schedule...
...She can't go on forever (as I've been saying for at least 15 years...
...Since then, I have accosted her whenever possible...
...As I made for the door, stung and angry, I heard an Eh...
...I stood before her for what seemed an eternity...
...It was, of course, de los Angeles, who had witnessed the entire scene...
...She was standing between two men —management, probably—with a highball in her hand...
...She was, simply, everything she is: smart, haughty, sly, grand, impossibly musical...
...No one was talking to him, which I thought was strange...
...Her public always thronged the greenroom after a recital, proffering flowers and hugs and tears...
...he said...
...now he commands—with equal dignity—his sister's Kleenex, bottled water, and lipstick...
...Horowitz beamed as though he had just formulated the theory of relativity...
...Why not...
...And she also received the single most elegant introduction I've ever heard: "The greater the person, the less you have to say about him...
...When I got there, I said, "Mr...
...Price was not only a singer, but a real musician...
...Then, as now, she sang Handel and Strauss and Poulenc and Barber—all with total authority...
...I adored her...
...Better drive to Columbus...
...The room, as always, was presided over by Price's manager, her brother, the retired Army general George Price...
...Sorry...
...It was in Newark—which, don't laugh, has a superb hall and a lively musical life—that I first met Leon-tyne Price...
...After the final encore, I hurried back, excited to greet de Larrocha...
...I floated out (still ticked, though...
...Price is in her seventies now— fulfilled, laureled, triumphant...
...Personality is usually a gross intrusion into music...
...It was a revelation, to bow to the cliche...
...JAY NORDLINGER...
...But she was on the concert series, sandwiched between the likes of Horowitz and Milstein, so I went...
...Funny thing is, I never wanted to meet the woman...
...Ever since, I haven't been able to shake her...
...I've been saying, "Hello, pumpkin," to my wife ever since (which, needless to say, is making her homicidal...
...But, gosh, I'm nuts about her...
...And I hadn't been in a greenroom since I was a boy...
...The boy ahead of me was Asian...
...I craved the high of a Price recital the way a heroin addict does his needle...
...I spat on that...
...Particularly nice was Chapel Hill, where Price performed shortly after I'd gotten married...
...Huh...
...I had nothing for him to write on...
...I had been sitting down in the front left, and, as I was exiting, I found that I was practically at the greenroom door...
...Then there was Mstislav Ros-tropovich, perhaps the most ebullient spirit in music, a man who kisses everyone he encounters without restraint...
...Horowitz said, "Japanese...
...How about this year...
...from the other end of the room...
...In fact, I resented her very participation in the evening...
...So I'll stop now...
...Was I a heroine addict...
...Ormandy was sitting at a table, signing, barely looking up...
...Oh, hang on a second: She hasn't been able to shake me...
...The maestro was startled...
...His nickname, in the Russian fashion, is "Slava...
...He then stood up (all four-foot-ten of him), embraced me, and thanked me as though he'd never been complimented in his life...
...One of them warned, as I headed off to New Haven, "Remember, Jay, there's a fine line between a fan and a stalker...
...Would this be her last year...
...Last week, she gave a master class at Howard University...
...Yeah, but rarely has a pastime been so joyous, so pure, so justifiable...
...People were lined up for miles, waiting for their programs to be autographed...
...The next time, I guess, was for Horowitz, who sat on a couch, sphinx-like...
...Better get to Boston...
...You'd be, too...
...To me he said nothing...
...When I introduced her to my wife, her eyes widened, and she said— with Mississippi heavy in her voice—"Why, hello, pumpkin...
...This enchanting woman—redolent of sweet sweat and makeup and perfume—beckoned me, murmured something tender, and stroked my face...
...I repeated myself...
...Ladies and gentlemen, Miss Leon-tyne Price...
...She came to town one year with another Spaniard, the soprano Victoria de los Angeles, for a duo recital...
Vol. 4 • November 1998 • No. 11
